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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27533047">What now?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/v0ltaire'>v0ltaire (orphan_account)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), My Chemical Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, Post-Apocalypse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 06:55:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,619</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27533047</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/v0ltaire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Set ten years after the fall of Battery City, when the zones are a set of colonies of people working together for the benefit of survival. Party Poison and Fun Ghoul still don't really know how to function without some life-threatening greater purpose, so they take a red wagon on a walk and talk about their future.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fun Ghoul &amp; Party Poison (Danger Days)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>What now?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>half description, half dialog, finished on a whim after going thru old drafrs</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The room floor was covered in clutter, CDs, clothes, cigarette ash, and a wrist shoved haphazardly through the blanket toppled on top of the body on the mattress in the corner. Poison scratched his flaky scalp with the other hand, his alarm clock (in the bathroom) screaming at the top of its lungs as he replied with a groan befitting of any good zombie. That, he was, hungover and well miffed and missing the blazing sun outside with all of its wonder. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With a great effort he stalked from his bedroom to the bath, and mightily slammed a manicured finger on the off button. He met his own eye in the mirror, his red hair covering half his face while the smudge of kohl under his lid made its way to his jaw, tight with annoyance. He wore the same thing he’d gone out in, and wondered how in the hell he managed to find his way home again after the wild ride the night before. The tight line of his lip softened into a smirk as he replayed the events in his head, but between the rattling beats still ricocheting in his skull and the strobe flashing behind his eyelids to match, he was met with a pounding headache. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Fuck me, and everything else,” he muttered, opening the medicine cabinet and rummaging for the right pill. Of course not, he thought with a dramatic sigh. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Poison shuffled out the bathroom and back down the hall to the door opposite his own, he knocked tentatively because he was a gentleman (ha) and opened the creaky knob with a slow whine. “Kobra?” he called into the dark, “my dearest brother whom I love very much and need something from? Ya here?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Fuck off, you stupid whore,” replied the sleep-thick voice of Kobra Kid.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Wow, ouch. That’s really not appropriate language to use for anyone.” Poison feigned hurt.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Show me your tits and then I’ll apologize.” Kobra sat up, his bed had a frame and everything, “On second thought, don’t. I thought you weren’t even coming home last night. What do you want?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You got any ibuprofen or something?”, Poison asked, his voice was shot and his tone bordered on begging and Kobra just stared at him through his sunglasses. Poison scrunched up his face, “I’ll take that as a no. Do you really sleep in those things?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Actually, I sleep with my eyes open because they’re photosensitive so I get a tingly feeling if there are intruders but I wouldn’t want to alert them that I’m aware of their presence. So, yes, I sleep with sick shades on, what?”, Kobra said, maintaining the unflinching stare at Poison.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think that’s what any of that means but I’ll take your word for it. I’m gonna go to The Shack, you want anything?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll be there later.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>[x]</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was a horribly complicated affair getting ready to be seen in public, thought Party Poison, after all the scene was booming and he could barely keep up with his own thoughts, let alone trends and ‘friends’ and everything that being socially literate required. He settled eventually for stealing a pair of ‘sick shades’ and pulling on a very practical vinyl jumpsuit. The trek to The Shack was five minutes, most of which included the awfully unstable elevator in their building, the stalling door, and navigating the maze of basement hallways but he knew it by heart and was there in a moment.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Behind the counter at the back of the dark room was Show Pony, an ushering hand and an ecstatic voice at Poison’s presence. “Look what the frog dragged in,” they said with a wide grin. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Look what he left behind to rot and fester like a cancer,” Party Poison replied sweetly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, you, always so sweet and lyrical.” Show Pony leaned over the counter, their arms splayed in front of them as if they would fall forward, fingers moving in anticipation as Poison walked towards the bar and sat down at one of the stools.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A spiritual miracle, that.” A voice called from the pantry storage at the far back of the room behind the counter.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Where are you, spitfire?” Poison called after it, making brief eye-contact with Show Pony who shrugged their shoulders in a nonchalant way which indicated clearly they did not care. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Fun Ghoul emerged with a box of empty bottles in hand, the clinking accented the heavy foot-falls of his boots and he leaned the box on his hip while closing the door behind himself. He came out to the other side and straight towards Poison, letting the box off onto the bartop. “Where I always am, protein deprived, in a dark hole, doin’ the work nobody else’ll wanna do.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I came by to get a coffee, but I think I’m gonna jet and head down to the airwalk. Anyone up for it? Or am I all alone?” Poison turned to and fro in his stool, lip puckered in a near pout. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I got a wagon of empties that I gotta dump on somebody but I can go.” Fun Ghoul shrugged. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Show Pony, who had righted themself to standing shook their head, wagged a finger and tsked them off with a lilting complaint about how they were always the one missing out on all the normal things other people did. Normal things didn’t constitute a whole lot in a post post-apocalypse pseudo society of free associations and agrarian communities. The airwalk for example was a scenic walking road that was easy to get to many trade posts and social hotspots, but it was previously used for very expensive planes with giant guns built specifically to kill people like them. A walk along a scenic trail was a nicer way to put it, though.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Poison waited outside the Shack for Ghoul to gather his shit, and when the little man rounded the corner with a pulley-red-wagon Poison slapped a knee and lost his shit bent over in laughter.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ghoul, affronted, growled at him, “the fuck?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t--” Poison choked on his own words, “I didn’t think you meant an actual wagon, jesus.” He sighed, and stood properly adjusting his posture and wiping at his eye from under the sunglasses to catch the water that threatened to spill. “Oh my god,” he said, and cleared his throat, “it’s great. I love it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s for utility purposes, it’s easier to carry a couple of garbage bags in this thing than havin’ ta haul around an entire shopping cart for only this amount of shit. You don’t care, though.” Ghoul shook his head, wagon squeaking along as he walked up to meet Poison’s side. “Let’s go.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>[x]</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As life went, rebuilding civilization with the intent of not repeating history after the dissolution of a great authoritarian city-state in times of technological renaissance, things were pretty good. Most people had lost something ten years ago, an arm, a leg, some cognitive abilities, but most people were okay with that in comparison to the before times. Late twenties weren’t something Poison ever thought he’d get to have, and in some ways, he thought, the thing he lost was a childhood more than anything else, since now all that he’d gained was immeasurably more valuable than the casualty of his innocence</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do you ever wonder about the future?” Poison asked, he’d latched his arm around Ghoul’s and they walked slowly shoulder to shoulder. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s hard when the first thing I gotta do is remember the fact that I even get to think about long term stuff.” Ghoul shrugged, “but yeah sometimes.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What are your goals? What do you wanna do?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wanna get my own place eventually and stop leeching off Pony. I thought about trying to get one of those moving houses, motor-- homes. I could fix it up and go wherever I wanted, I’d like to be able to do that without worrying if I’m gonna die without provisions. I want a dog, and a real gun with bullets cos the sound of blasters fucks me up. I wanna learn how to make fireworks, like old Chinese festival ones, the good ones.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why?”, asked Ghoul.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I feel like I've been doing the same shit that I used to... to get away. Was thinking about how I don’t have any plans like that, I don’t have any wants. I want Kobra to be happy, and I want the Girl to be happy, and I want Jet and you and everyone to be okay and to move on. But, I don’t want anything for myself. I don’t really know what to do about it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You do good when you have a big purpose, you’re a problem solver.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to do that anymore, and I don’t want to be stuck like this forever.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Then let’s run away.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What do you mean?” Poison asked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Let’s go find a fucking car and leave,” Ghoul said, completely serious.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t…” Poison could hear all the questions racing through his own mind, about the logistics, where they’d go, what they’d pack, how they would even find a working vehicle that someone would be willing to part with, how they’d afford it if they could. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shut up, I didn’t say right now, unless you wanna go right now. Kobra’s got his stupid little dojo, Jet’s got the shop for repairing shit. You and me? We’re gonna go on an adventure, right now or in six months when we can manage it. That’s it. That’s what I want, and a dog, and to light off some massive fucking fireworks. That okay with you? Cos I’m probably not taking no for an answer, just FYI.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Good.”</span>
</p><p><br/>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thanks for reading :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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